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The Rise of Coach Boss Continues in “Southern Bastards” #6 [Review]

By | December 11th, 2014
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

“Southern Bastards” #6 continues to explore the backstory of Coach Boss, and the creative team makes the already seedy Craw County even seedier.

Written by Jason Aaron
Illustrated by Jason Latour

Dig further into the grim past of the biggest bastard of them all, and discover how Coach Boss came to be the most feared man in all Craw County.

Coach Boss is a great villain. With a name like Coach Boss, how could he be anything less? The problem with great villains; the audience wants to know how they became that way. Unfortunately, most villains just weren’t that interesting before they were villains, and attempts to make them interesting can devolve into clichés and general whininess (coughAnakinSkywalkercoughcough). Jason Aaron’s last attempt at a villain origin featured Thanos, the Mad Titan, as a young kid who gets picked on and can’t make friends. This makes him seem a little less imposing, even as he slides on the Infinity Gauntlet.

In the previous issue of “Southern Bastards”, it seemed like Aaron had learned from his adventures on Titan, and written a young Boss who was slightly more sympathetic, but clearly was not an angel. This issue definitely aims to tug at the reader’s heart strings a little more, with the further exploration of young Euless’ terrible relationship with his father. Aaron puts a bit of a twist on the traditional abusive father character, because here the older Boss isn’t just a neglectful father, he barely even acknowledges that Euless is alive.

The most interesting character that Aaron fleshes out in this issue is Ol’Big. Readers have already spotted the character as the Boss’ assistant coach in the present storyline. Here we see that Euless was the Karate Kid to Big’s Mr. Miyagi. Big takes pity on Euless and puts him through a Rocky-esque training montage. Aaron adapts it to fit Craw County of course, so there’s plenty of barb wire and growling dogs. It hits a lot of familiar beats, and comes close to being a real feel good moment until the griminess of this town manages to pollute. It seemed like Aaron was trying to make us feel sympathetic for Euless, when really it’s about the moment that set him on the path to be an underworld crime lord. Euless had a goal, and he worked incredibly hard for weeks on end to reach it, and when he finally succeeds the dredges of Craw County take it away from him in a second. This is how Euless learns that hard work, honesty and integrity gets you nowhere in this place. Strength and ruthless aggression is how you get power to control your own destiny.

On a peculiar side note, this issue features some of Aaron’s funniest dialogue yet. He mostly uses it to add a bit of strange character to the inhabitants of the town. I laughed out loud when Big was eating a stick of butter and dismissed Euless’ questions about it. Even when the mob enforcers tell Euless that if he had been a starter instead of on special teams, he could have avoided his violent fate, it has a dark comedic edge. A very dark comedic edge.

After the first five issue were situated mainly in a restaurant, a mostly abandon home and a football field, Jason Latour gets to shake up the art a little bit when young Euless arrives home after practice. While it’s obvious that Craw County is not the richest part of the country, it’s still a shock to see the abject squalor that the Boss family (if you can call them that) live in. Even from the outside, the trailer home looks like it’s barely held together and once the door opens and stolen chickens start to fly out, it becomes clear how destitute the Boss’ are. This is the grimiest part of an already grimy town. When Euless is forced to sleep outside in the car, Latour details the scene to feature beer bottles and cigarettes covering the ground all around him. Don’t be surprised if you feel the urge to wash your hands after.

Jason Latour pencils some of the most expressive faces you’re going to find. Everyone’s facial features are exaggerated and enlarged, making the frowns, scowls and constant expressions of rage stand out incredibly well. There’s no room for subtlety here, and the characters don’t even need to speak for readers to perceive their anger and disappointment. Latour’s faces get downright creepy in the more violent moments, when the perpetrators can almost always be seen with a demented grin. It becomes even more off putting because the violent encounter that ends the issue is juxtaposed with Euless brief moment of triumph, when he looks happier than anyone has ever looked in this series.

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And Jason Latour even makes chickens look creepy. Chickens.

“Southern Bastards” is a series that loves to mess with your expectations. First the big good guy / bad guy fight goes completely wrong, and now it twists the familiar villain origin story. Coach Boss is man of great conviction, and remorseless violence. Jason Aaron writes an origin that makes us feel sympathy for the character, without trying to claim that Coach Boss was ever completely innocent. Jason Latour keeps producing great art for this series, and there are moments where the dirt and grime look like it’s going to slip off the page. “Southern Bastards” isn’t trying to make an anti-hero out of Coach Boss, but it is succeeding in making him a more complex and layered character.

Final Verdict: 8.0 – Coach Boss is quickly becoming one of the most interesting new comic characters to come along in a while, and Aaron and Latour are excellent at showing just how terrible Craw County can be.


Matt Dodge

Matt Dodge is originally from Ottawa (go Sens!), where he attended University and somehow ended up with a degree in history and political science. He currently resides in Toronto where he is a full-time procrastinator who occasionally takes a break to scribble some pretentious nonsense on a piece of paper. He knows way too much about hockey, Saved By The Bell, and Star Wars. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Dodge.

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